Scientists have been able to track down the oldest known lizard which has been in existence for 240 million years. The old fossil has been identified as the 'mother of all lizards.' This ancient lizard is the direct ancestor of approximately 10,000 species alive today. The tiny reptile called Megachirella is the size of a chameleon and the scans of its fossils reveal they are ancestors to a group called squamates which includes snakes and lizards from today.

“The specimen is 75 million years older than what we thought were the oldest fossil lizards in the entire world. This discovery provides valuable information for understanding the evolution of both living and extinct squamates," explained Tiago Simões, the lead author and PhD student in the University of Alberta’s Department of Biological Sciences, in a statement. Its fossil was discovered about 20 years ago buried in the Dolomites mountain range in northeast Italy. But scientists had misclassified it as lepidosaur, a type of primitive reptile. However, certain lizard-like features hinted that it belonged somewhere else. "When I first saw the fossil I realised it had important features that could link it to the early evolution of lizards," he said. So he performed a detailed analysis of the skeleton along with a CT scanning. New Guinea’s Green-blooded Lizards; Its Blood is Toxic Enough to Kill Humans!

The new scans revealed some unseen features that were probably missed and they used these scans to form a 3D computer model and found its linkage to squamates. This evidence proved to be a very important part of the evolution puzzle tracing back to the existence of squamates. This is the oldest relative tracing back to the dinosaurs ever and the team put in nearly data sets of four years to find these out. For studying fossils, the accurate time is very crucial and the scientists have got a very crucial linkage to the past with this discovery.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 31, 2018 09:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).